DIY iPad case: ぞうのハナコ (the elephant flower girl)

While big name livery gets all the headlines, it’s the products of real makers that stand out. Really, what’s 5$ of felt and a few hours of your time? The above is the product of my genius wife, who having run out of room in her Celtic colouring book, decided to make a case for her iPad. I showed her my scheduler-esque Marware Eco-Vue iPad case (certainly svelte for a scheduler – and pictured here for the Kindle), but she wasn’t impressed. She wanted cute. We headed to PixDix, to the Apple Store, to BestBuy, to #Apple, and to various online retailers; not a one presented anything quite cute enough. Frustrated, but still kicking, my wife found SopoShop, and a really cute elephant pouch. Every poet is a thief and every biology lab researcher can replicate the finest of details, so while we bypassed SopoShop’s unfortunate dearth of iPad cases, we did come away with the elephant flower girl.

Piccies and more after the gap:

SopoShop don’t sell rip-offs, they sell quality hand-made goods. What happens when a person gets behind earthen material is that rather than mere form or function, creativity, too, is loosed. The elephant flower girl is cute, it’s soft, and it cost a mere 5$ in materials (that didn’t come out of my weekly allowance – yippee!).

Designing and making your own case is a lot of fun. It also just so happens to use higher brain functions and entertains spouses to no end. My wife sat at her work for nigh on a week, stitching, thinking, and attacking with all the verve of a hungry biologist.

So why don’t more people make their own iPad cases?

Simple really: they lack the skills, the creativity, or the energy to do it – or they think they do. This felt pouch will probably outlast my other case, at least while still looking good. The Marware works, but it’s already begun to stretch out and catches my thumb when I try to type. Apart from super-cuteness the elephant flower girl has no genuine utility; so while I could argue that it lacks a certain pragmatic flair, the truth is that at least it does its job with panache while the Marware Eco-Vue does its job, but rather than excelling in all areas, apes shigzeo’s schoolboy days, i.e., catching up slowly from the back of the class.

If the elephant flower girl gets dirty, it can be washed and will still look cute. If it gets bruised, it can be bandaged and will still look cute. No manner of newfangled fibres zapped together by some 3D printer will attain this level of appeal. Those fibres may be more useful – that is, until they stretch too far – than the elephant flower girl ever will be as a protector; but at every turn, I will be reminded of how lazy I am, of how I couldn’t just hunker down over a piece of cardboard, some fake leather, and a cheap sewing kit to crack out a smashing design.

I’ve an Apple iPad case on the way (thanks Louis) which should at the very least alleviate the Marware’s evil typing angle, but I’ll be damned if I want to go out in public with such a bland, black sliver of polyester as part of my stylin’ getup.

At 30, I feel that I too am entitled to a bit of cuteness and God help me, it will be stitched by my own hands.